As misinformation proliferated on X thanks to verified users, a massive account sharing accurate information hit its Musk-imposed posting limit.
As misinformation proliferated on X thanks to verified users, a massive account sharing accurate information hit its Musk-imposed posting limit.
Too bad they don’t just open their own instance and post there, unlimited. It was always a bad idea to put public safety information channels in private hands.
They have their own Mastodon instance and have since 2017. They also have an app. They were telling people to get the app once they realized they were being API limited.
But people in Japan have trusted Twitter for emergency info since the big Tohoku earthquake and still go there for information. Elon wrecked that trust.
Its maddening how hard it is to get people to move socials. Maybe this will be the People’s wake up call. It really illustrates the point that most people just want to be where everyone else is.
This is true, and I also think the ‘lack of an algorithm’ keeps many people away. While many of us don’t want to be force fed a list of ‘for you’ messages, a lot of people are hoping to get traction for viral tweets and build an audience of people who will get/read/respond to their posts, and that engagement doesn’t exist on Mastodon in the same way.
That is a great point that I personally have never heard. A lot of these people want to be influencers. They want to be paid to have a following and post stuff. Thats not possible here, at least not in the same way.
That’s one thing that I have noticed and appreciated about both Fediverse and Mastodon: they’re boring.
And I mean this in the most positive way. Commercialized social media has zeroed in on the 'ol dopamine pump to move content around. This place is full of interesting articles, discussions, and even shitposts, but it all lacks the sheer eyeball-grabbing, visceral pleasure provoking, potential of the bad stuff. It’s like going on a diet or kicking a bad habit. Instead of doom-scrolling or looking at piles of cat memes all day, you just kind of get “full” and go do something more productive with your time. It’s fantastic.
But that’s also at odds with “viral” content. It seems that, for now at least, thought provoking, genuinely interesting, and well produced content gets the most traction. Call me regressive, but I see this as a feature and it’s no wonder that folks will keep away because of it.
A lot of these people are utterly hopeless. I went into a really bad argument with a fellow creator for daring to suggest them to at least try the fediverse, even after Twitter nazis harassed them.
One another issue is the paid blue checkmark’s effect on making one invest even more into the platform, which is needed to avoid your reach being completely borked.
Meamwhile I completely discontinued my engine’s own account there in favor of a Mastodon account ( @PixelPerfectEngine ), and I only visit Twitter for the few creators that didn’t make the jump.
I’m mostly shocked they’ve had their own instance sinxe 2017. You aren’t goinf to get people who are on socials to make money to move here until it reaches a certain saturation point. Even then, unless theres a way to monetize the views that whole influencer culture won’t come here. Maybe thats a good thing, I dont want monetization here.
Glad to hear they’ve taken the right steps. Hopefully it’s still running when/if they can get the people to shift over.